Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has tapped a top State Department official and veteran of politics under successive Democratic presidents as the new Pentagon chief of staff, officials said, as the Biden administration races to set key defense priorities before of the November elections.
Derek Chollet, who as aide to Secretary of State Antony Blinken has played a central role in the effort to negotiate a deal to transform the Middle East, will replace current chief of staff Kelly Magsamen, who is leaving his post this month, officials said. The officials spoke about the condition of anonymity before an official announcement.
Last year, the White House nominated Chollet to be the Pentagon’s top political official, but his nomination was bogged down in partisan bickering in the Senate, where Republicans have objected to Pentagon policies authorize reimbursement for service members’ travel related to Reproductive health care, including abortions.and other management actions.
Austin, in a statement, said he was grateful to Chollet “for taking on this key task at such an important time.”
Blinken described Chollet in baseball terms, calling him a “quintessential five-tool player” whose resume, including senior positions in the Pentagon and the National Security Council during the Obama administration, had contributed to “a breadth of experience that the rest of us rely on every day.”
Blinken nominates Tom Sullivan, another of his top advisers, to become a State Department adviser, a high-level position that does not require Senate approval. Sullivan, the brother of national security adviser Jake Sullivan, will also retain his current position as deputy chief of staff for policy.
Chollet returns to the Pentagon four months before the 2024 presidential election, in which Biden faces a tight race that could put former President Trump in the White House for a second term and potentially derail a number of key administration policies. The former president has questioned some of the administration’s major defense and national security initiatives, including his multibillion-dollar effort to help Ukraine keep Russia at bay.
A senior administration official acknowledged that a key focus for national security officials in the coming months would be trying to “protect” key priorities. At the Pentagon, that will likely include the transition of some initiatives to multilateral control, for example, the incorporation within NATO of a US-led initiative. forum that Austin launched after the 2022 Russian invasion to convene monthly defense leaders and coordinate weapons donations to Ukraine.
Austin, a former Army general, and his inner circle came under intense scrutiny after news emerged earlier this year that he had been hospitalized in intensive care. without notifying the White House or the public for several days. Austin later apologized for the secrecy surrounding the episode; Magsamen also faced criticism from Republicans in Congress.
Jeremy Bash, who was Leon Panetta’s chief of staff when he was defense secretary, cited a description used by Robert Gates, another former Pentagon chief, who said that the job of defense secretary actually consisted of two positions: secretary of war and Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Pentagon: The sprawling military bureaucracy, spanning dozens of disparate agencies and an annual budget of more than $800 billion.
“The chief of staff really has to be an advisor to the secretary on both issues, that is, on the issues of how we deploy the US military to deter conflict and win wars, but also how we can rapidly deploy capabilities. that are going to be necessary for war in the rest of the 21st century,” he said.
Chollet previously served as an advisor to an advisory firm, Beacon Global Strategies, which Bash helps run.
Chollet, in an interview, said he expected the Pentagon to focus in the coming months on priorities that include helping Ukraine position itself as effectively as possible against Russia; strengthening the US military posture in the Indo-Pacific region; and assist ally Israel as it attempts to prevent a regional war in the Middle East.
He said uncertainty about what would happen after the November election should not stop the department from pursuing longer-term goals. “We won’t make assumptions about what’s next, but will simply work hard to finish the first term with the national defense strategy as our north star, and then we’ll go from there,” he said.
Chollet, who began his career in Washington helping former Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff James Baker III write his memoirs, said Baker often said that “the most important word in the title ‘chief of staff’ ‘ It was ‘personal’. ‘”
“The most important thing is to serve your boss,” Chollet said. “He is also the person who helps everything under the boss run better.”
As an adviser to Blinken, Chollet has played a leading role in the administration’s response to the conflict in Gaza, accompanying the top diplomat on his trips throughout the Middle East. With Barbara Leaf, a top Middle East diplomat, has played a leading role in crafting a proposal (which many outside experts see as a long shot) that would stabilize Gaza once the fighting ends, push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process and would normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. She has also worked closely with senior White House official Brett McGurk on a proposed US-Saudi defense pact.
An Israeli official cited Chollet’s role in helping to ease the intense tension that the Gaza conflict has fueled between Washington and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“We are talking about a very sensitive period,” said an Israeli official. “There were issues we needed to resolve between the two governments and Derek has been instrumental in bridging the gap.”
Officials said Chollet’s nomination as Pentagon political czar would not be withdrawn when he assumes the chief of staff role, despite the slim likelihood of progress in the coming months. Several Republican senators have promised to oppose Chollet on the Pentagon’s abortion policy. Meanwhile, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged senators to oppose Chollet about his role in the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called on the Senate to confirm Chollet, noting that two key U.S. partners, Israel and Ukraine, are dealing with active conflicts.
“This is exactly the time when a Senate-confirmed undersecretary of policy is needed,” he said. “It’s fortunate that I can go to the Pentagon and support him as chief of staff, but it’s not the same.”
Sullivan, who replaces Chollet at the State Department, has been a constant presence alongside Blinken since 2021. Since the Gaza conflict erupted last fall, a primary focus of Blinken’s top team has been trying to defuse threats to Israel and improve the conditions of the Palestinians.
Blinken said Sullivan had “stood by my side in meetings with heads of state, foreign ministers and other world leaders as we rebuilt our alliances and partnerships, confronted Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, stabilized our relationship with China while defending American interests.” . and he worked to build lasting peace, security and stability in the Middle East.”
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